Alicyn
Welcome to Alicyn's Wonderland. I'm your host, Alicyn Packard. Join us as we journey through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole into the wild and wonderful world of animation and video games.
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Hi everyone. Happy Wonderland Wednesday. Thank you so much for tuning in to Alicyn's Wonderland. I'm your host, Alicyn Packard. In case you didn't know this is a weekly show that takes place every Wednesday where we sit down with people that work in animation and video games and pick their brains about their careers, what it is that they do, and just talk about life. So thank you for tuning in live on today's host are today's special guest is Jon Bailey.
Jon Bailey has a million different voices. He is so cool. If you're not already a fan of John's, you will be soon after this show. So I'm gonna go ahead and add Jon right now and we're gonna get started. You guys get ready to hear one of the most inspirational voiceover stories I've ever heard. Okay, Bailey. And we're waiting. Hi.
Jon Bailey
Hi.
Alicyn
How's it going my friend?
Jon Bailey
[inaudible] Voices you've ever heard.
Alicyn
[incomprehensible] My nerd guy?
Jon Bailey
Why is it so zoomed in on me?
Alicyn
It's like once two people are sharing the screen, you get – it gives you less space.
Jon Bailey
Like, space.
Alicyn
Back it up! It is so good to see you. John. How are you today?
Jon Bailey
I'm good. Sometimes I drive through your neighborhood just to wave at the houses.
Alicyn
Random houses? That’s amazing.
Jon Bailey
Sometimes I go through your neighborhood just wave at your house because we can't see each other anymore because of all the quarantine restrictions.
Alicyn
I know. I feel like I'm sponsoring Lacroix just by very obvious sip of this.
Jon Bailey
I am Aquafina.
Alicyn
Oh, cheers.
Jon Bailey
Cheers.
Alicyn
I had Melissa Hutchinson on last week and we actually had a cocktail it was. I think maybe we need to do a new series called like, Wonderland After Dark. Where it's
Jon Bailey
true. I do have many bottles of aviation gin.
Alicyn
Why?
Jon Bailey
Because Ryan Reynolds really likes me for some reason. I don't know.
Alicyn
He sends you Jim. Really? That story and you did a lot of voice matching for Ryan Reynolds. You do a lot of everything, actually. That’s one of the things I'm sort of most impressed by you is just the breadth of your work. You work in promos, you work in trailers, animation VO, commercials, a lot of voice matching impression type stuff. So what tell us what is the story with Ryan Reynolds and Aviation Gin?
Jon Bailey
Yeah, I have to be a Swiss Army knife of voiceover because I have a big family to support. So in order to keep that insurance, yeah. So at some point, I think I started tweeting Aviation Gin and Ryan Reynolds, and he was already familiar with my work because of a collaboration on the Deadpool on his trailer. And he proved they were doing— Oh, they were doing he was trying to come up with slogans for the Aviation Gin.
And it was like him doing a whole bunch of terrible slogans in a row which is the style that I do my content into it's just like improv through a bunch of stuff like like every Will Ferrell movie that kind of thing. I think I tweeted something to that and they were in aviation good said something about we would love to hear you say this.
And I was like, instead of just saying it, I should really do it. Just go. So I actually filmed it in the booth. I got one of my wife’s, like, scarves and try to make it look like an ass guy like super with the pinkie and everything and wow suit on all do nice in a really good movie trailer voice and then posted it back.
And then Ryan Reynolds tweeted back after that they're, they’re, “This is amazing. We're gonna make this the ringtone for all the Aviation Gin employees!”
Tweet something to the effect of a ringtone so I'm making this the ringtone for my funeral I don't know what that means but this is awesome! But the next thing I know they are messaging me about is hey, the boss wants to send you something can you give us your address and then I’m like, “Cool!”
Alicyn
Someone's saying they can't hear a thing.
Jon Bailey
I hear you.
Alicyn
Anyone else having issues with sound?
Jon Bailey
Maybe bales just got hit now down below we're just gonna proceed sorry they'll
Jon Bailey
right before this hoping that like boost some numbers. I don't know if it works or not. I really haven't.
Alicyn
Did they tell you where did you tell him where you could find us?
Jon Bailey
But it's when I go live with somebody with when somebody they follow goes live it shows up is their life too. So they don't get automatically she hasn't been but it's I have not fully figured out the algorithms and things and all the tricks and for all the Instagram stuff. Yes, TikTok, I’m a little more proficient. Okay. With TikTok, I got in, I got into the ground floor. So I understand that went a little bit better. I was very late to the party with Twitter and Instagram, and honestly, all the other quotes to Alexa, do you look beautiful, and I concur. She always looks amazing.
Alicyn
Oh, thank you. Tadlock. Making me feel good on the inside.
Jon Bailey
She's just as talented. She looks to your show. I'm sorry.
Alicyn
You know what's so funny is that the first time I met you, you had asked to interview me on your YouTube show. And that was probably like, eight or nine years ago.
Jon Bailey
Yeah, it's been a while.
Alicyn
It's been a while. Yeah. So it's good. Now tables are turned and I can turn the favors slash—do you like interviews, by the way?
Jon Bailey
I was about to say I've been getting a lot of interview requests just in the last couple months that I really don't know why it's nothing's really changed that much. For me, at least that recently. I could see if it was a combined thing. It's just been a long time, or I don't know, but just all of a sudden people are out of the woodwork. You want to be on a podcast or like, Yeah, okay. Why?
Alicyn
Not really, but I really can't say no.
Jon Bailey
It's quarantine. What else do I have to do?
Alicyn
I was curious.
Jon Bailey
You can stream I can't, because we have the same representation. So if they message one of us, so message, I suppose.
Alicyn
Yeah, exactly. Did you just get an audition? Shoot?
Jon Bailey
Everything's male or female? So there's no—
Alicyn
Any age really, we don't want to discriminate or draw the line. John, I want to, as we get started, start at the very beginning, because I think that you have one of the most inspiring stories of any voice actor I know.
Now, I know that in your 20s you were living in Mississippi, you were flipping burgers and running a forklift, just had dropped out of college, no shame there at all. But things were not quite exactly—today.
Jon Bailey
Found out the truth about the college I was going to that's a totally different subject. That's that is a little misrepresentation, they did not inform me or at least I did not understand that there was only one kind of degree to get from that school. And I when I found out that my degree would only be good for a teaching education and doing it in their church slash school. And I'm like, that's not what I want to do.
So I don't— three years in, I'm like poop. I don't, this is not gonna it's not accredited. So what good was it gonna do me? So I picked up online and finished it. I did finish a community college and I got my degree. So stay in school kids.
Alicyn
And then you basically so your wife was saying, this is your passion, you love doing voiceover and you started making YouTube videos, and then take us through your path from there.
Jon Bailey
She's a lot more responsible than that. What eventually happened was, she's the one that kind of encouraged me to do more YouTube stuff. When it first came out. She'd seen something on Oprah and she was on Oprah, then Jon's got to do it. But back then getting the hardware to do to put together a computer that would be able to do the kind of video stuff that I wanted to do was not cheap. It was thousands. And we didn't even make that much money. Nickels compared to what I make now. And I didn't. So I was a little late to the party.
Alicyn
Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing.
Jon Bailey
So anyway, the the thing happened when I was at work, I think at the time, I was maybe at Chick Fil A flipping it was good kitchen manager. She was making a MySpace page, and an ad popped up back before they had popup blockers. And it was for a local studio. I don't know if you've ever even heard of this, but Studio Center dot Com?
Alicyn
Yes.
Jon Bailey
Okay. So they have five locations across the country. There's one in Texas, I think, yeah. And they had one in Memphis at the time. They don't anymore. It's been a long time since a Braille Institute now. But when— I— My wife saw that they had a Memphis location she's John can do because that's in our own backyard. And we really didn't know about online stuff. There wasn't a lot of information about voiceover back then. Memphis is not really known for anything other than blues and barbeque and bullets. So three, Bing, yeah, exactly.
So I went down there and try them out. And they were just “Whoa.” So they gave me a shot. And I think by the end of the year, or at the beginning of the next year, they give me a contract to sign. And then they started sending me auditions the February 1 The following month, and by February 11th, I booked my first gig. Wow, was all non union at that time, but the rate was still way more than I was used to getting paid for doing 80 hours of forklift work.
Alicyn
Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. And was that
Jon Bailey
she was like, the worst they can do is say, No, what do you got to lose? Because at first I was just like, “Eh.”
Alicyn
That is a pretty epic story. And so then tell us about your transition to Los Angeles.
Jon Bailey
Oh, that took a little time. It was really rough at first so you don't just I didn't know Things work. So I found everything the hard way, like, it was all trial and error from the very beginning, I did not know you could just jump into it full time. So it took me a while before I really found my footing. But once my first manager found our manager, they transitioned me to a different tier. And they get they helped put me with my current agency, which again, that kind of just slowly climbing that ladder. And when they can't tell my agency kept telling me that you would do better in LA.
And I at the time, I just thought it was something that agents tell somebody who's not booking a lot or why they're giving them excuse not to submit them. Maybe I was still too new, whatever. I just assumed, and our manager just kept telling us, “Oh, no, you don't need to come here. You can do everything that we do from there. So all the ADR, the trailer, the promo stuff.”
I can do everything remotely, didn't really need to be in LA. But honestly, coming out here really did it boosted everything overall, it also increased the ADR stuff that I do. I started doing little group stuff, background voices for film, TV show dubbing series on Netflix and things.
But it took it took a few years, there was a situation with our artistic kid. And we realized that if we didn't get some help, that there would be no coming back from it. because there just wasn't there just not the resources and services in Mississippi that there are here. So we realize that my job and his situation, both would work best in this town. And yeah, within the first couple of years, things just like I was told takes about three years that I was lucky to survive the first one. And within two years, we were just I was like jobs were just coming at me.
Alicyn
When you came here you already had representation.
Jon Bailey
Yeah.
Alicyn
So that's a huge obstacle.
Jon Bailey
It's really like, Oh, he's here, and he's in person. And I think the more that the social media, the more the online things that I worked on which they're still voiceover jobs, but they're not. It's it's considered new media. And a lot of people don't understand that just because you hear a voice in a YouTube video. That doesn't mean that this was one guy who made this whole thing and posted it himself. It's not my channel. It's not my video, I'm just the voice and some, there's a whole team of people that put this together.
That's why it's so well done. So there's a little bit of a disconnect between people who understand that and the other side of the voiceover business. So I've always tried to keep them separate. But as that kind of grew in popularity and became more mainstream, that combined with my own social media content, people started—people in the industry that are looking to hire voice actors. were wanting to hire Epic Voice Guy, but then they realized that there's John Bailey, the voice actor, and holy crap, he can do all this other stuff and more doors started opening, I was able to do more coaching because a lot of the coaches you can do here you cannot do. Of course not a quarantine. Everybody's doing it online. Yeah.
Alicyn
Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Bailey
My wife's answering all all the personal questions, folks. [inaudible]
Alicyn
One, okay. Yeah, so how many kids you have? Three? Four? Four kids?
Jon Bailey
Where they're not kids any more! The youngest one turns 13 In a week and a half.
Alicyn
He even seen them since ComiCon.
Jon Bailey
I think this is what happens. This is what you're going to look like in after they turn into a teenager.
Alicyn
This is really challenging, are they
Jon Bailey
When they were babies, I was cute, too. I had hair.
Alicyn
Now you gotta hat.
Jon Bailey
More muscles.
Alicyn
So are they homeschooling right now with the [inaudible] and stuff?
Jon Bailey
They’re doing home school, digital, digital school, which has it's been a bit of a learning curve to be sure.
Alicyn
Yeah, there must be so much on you and your wife is that yeah, I don't crazy.
Jon Bailey
It would be a lot for one or two. But for for and one of them special needs. And they're there to an each school, but they're all in different grades. But yeah. I still have to manage. My wife now working from home. And I'm trying to manage basically two careers. And she's trying to do her business, and we're trying to help them with school. And it's very hard to be that on hands on deck all the time. 24/7 Every kid seems to need and my wife, including everybody needs to have me help them at some point or work with them in some capacity. And it's hard to do. Because I'm, I'm the guy at the circus spinning all the plates. And I got a lot of points go.
Alicyn
I was gonna say I think far away one of the most prolific content creators that is a voice actor.
Jon Bailey
I try to get more voice actors to do when I coach I'm like, you should try to do something with social media. Because I think there's a way to integrate something that's either your hobby or your passion with your talent and to create your own thing. And I've seen so many different people do it different ways. There was a guy who used to be nothing. And he was doing creepypastas. I'm not sure if you're familiar with what that is. But basically it scary story, read to creepy music and weird pictures on YouTube.
And all of a sudden that voice voiceover career just exploded because he found a thing. And so I've always been. I've always been the kind of person who thought where you should take something that everybody's familiar with something that you're really good at and just put those two things together.
And when I found a way to just combine different things that other people already Did and stay in staying in my house saying in my in my lane, and there's a big there's an audience out if you join Tik Tok today, there's enough people out there that are already fans of you that you would have 1000s of people following you in no time as well.
And I keep telling a lot of voice actors that aren't doing social media, so even if you don't understand it, at least try it a little bit. Even if you do the very basics. Rob Paulson's first tick tock video had 5 million views before he even changed his which I helped him change his username from user 947673. Everybody thought it was a fake account I—
Alicyn
They’re like, “This guy’s…”
Jon Bailey
Verified check mark and use it.
Alicyn
Trending on Twitter users 3675
Jon Bailey
It looks like such a fake account.
Alicyn
They're like this guy's ripping off Rob Paulsen
Jon Bailey
A lot of people do that too. So it's it's scary how easy it is for some celebrities get checkmarks and then you find out that wasn't even a real celebrity. It was just somebody posting all of their stuff. Did a really good job of making it look like it was yeah, there's people on there now where people are starting to police the fake accounts.
I'm always looking for people that are like poaching videos of friends of mine stuff and I see a lot of Howie Mandel's and Alec—my buddy Alex is his son. Like taking their videos and posting it as really him just trying to get views and likes and really what do you get out of that anyway? Like you don't get to keep that you're gonna get busted at some point.
Alicyn
And it's a little bit twisted if it's weird. It's just not your stuff.
Jon Bailey
Yeah, it's it's so lazy.
Alicyn
Hi Sam! Sorry, just saying hi to my friend. Your thing? Yeah. Look at you. Look at that. Pretty little light your eye.
Jon Bailey
Oh, that's a ring light in a British film. It's— Yours looks like a music video. I've got you know an alien virus.
Jon Bailey
Don’t worry it’s not Corona, okay?
Alicyn
okay, okay, but we were supposed to rewind back to the beginning, because I'm still I want to know. So YouTube. So you started this YouTube channel you did, which came first? Your YouTube following or Honest Trailers?
Jon Bailey
YouTube, I did YouTube on my own first and I didn't really know what I had. I just I just made content. And it wasn't there was no real rhyme or reason. There was no real flow or specific brand. We really nobody really knew what they were doing. We were just posting content. What's funny is looking back on it now that's exactly what tick tock is. There's no real theme. Would you find a thing, so most people will stick to it. Same thing with Instagram. It's just random. Like it's one person posting a lot of things. Yeah.
So the link between the things is the person making the thing. Yeah. Oh, and back. I was doing YouTube that way back then. But back then that is not what worked. And I really didn't know that. But I did get a lot of views. Because I did a lot of Optimus Prime like I did a lot of Transformers, dubs just funny stuff that I did all the character voices. I write the stuff myself. And I came to be known as like internet Optimus Prime or Youtubimus Prime.
And that created a little bit of a trend of transformers fan following that were the whole basis came from for that. And then after I started getting interested in the trailer voice and branching out doing other voices for stuff, I put together this video that my first manager had found online after Don had passed away, but I'd made it a few years before of may do it.
I wrote my own movie trailer with broken into five, five or six different genres, and then a trailer for each one. So I did have Douglas Fir one and Nash and Smith for another one. And just went down the road. And my first manager was really crappy that not only does he sound like those guys, he actually knows who those guys are. And this was in 2008 or nine, or 2010. I'm sorry. And so he was like, nobody knows who Ashton Smith is.
And he contacted where he had his booking agent contact me so we'd like to try on down. Yeah, they tried to, they tried me out on a few things.
And he was like, “Yeah, you booked three out of four of these.” He started off by saying, right now you're just doing impressions of other movie trailer voices. And we think you have a lot of raw potential and we would like to work with you to kind of develop your own movie trailer voice like the John Bailey voice where other people are trying to imitate you, not just you doing Don's voice are you doing house voice or whatever.
Alicyn
Which is pretty unusual. You don't hear a lot of that kind of story we've ever made.
Jon Bailey
He just owned a trailer house and over by the grove at the time. And he just thought I had a lot of potential and wanted to be part of the whole “I discovered him” story. There's a lot of people here and there. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Rick party who used to run voiceover universe.com but he feels like responsible for that he found me on YouTube and featured my one of my one of my first big trailers was the Book of Eli Blu-Ray trailer. And he featured it on the main page which coincidentally led to some weird stuff.
Somebody called and threatened like put me to print put me in prison for breaking sag rules over that. When I asked my manager about it, he said, “We actually know you're talking about. And that guy's actually an agent. And one of the guys that he represents we usually hire him and we didn't hire him for this. And he probably got mad when he saw his spot spot and he’s called his agent to try to scare you.”
Alicyn
Drama!
Jon Bailey
I know. He's what's this, The Sopranos?
Alicyn
Welcome to the world of voiceover.
Jon Bailey
Yeah. They don't tell you about all that at the panels.
Alicyn
No, I don't think Yeah.
Jon Bailey
Anyway, that was a long time ago. And that hasn't happened since that was very, I was like,
Alicyn
I really I'm noticing a low that there's some really good questions for John. So I just want to encourage everybody, if you have questions, do you see the little question mark at the bottom of the box at the bottom of the screen, go ahead and type your question in there. And then at the end, we will circle back I've written a few of them down. But if you go ahead and write them in there, that would be great. For anybody that's just tuning in. This is Alicyn's Wonderland. It’s a weekly podcast. Hi, today, we're interviewing John Bailey. But every week we have different people that work in animation and video games, voice actors produce voice actors, you don't usually hear it pronounced like that voice actors as opposed to writers, show creators—
Jon Bailey
They show that the box everybody else is gonna do the other way you did there. Were both in boxes, like
Jon Bailey
I'm in a glass cage of emotions!
Alicyn
Yeah, you can follow my page and subscribe for updates. Probably John, you probably know how to how one would actually do that.
Jon Bailey
Yeah, they can click your name up there at the top. And follow you follow that user? Right there. There you go.
Alicyn
There you go. Okay, so cool. So you made the transition to LA, you're producing content, you’re booking and booking and getting more and more stuff. What's been some of your favorite roles that you've ever performed?
Jon Bailey
Well, I mentioned that transformers was a big like inspiration and kind of a big part of my my initial like social media fan base. At one point, our agency reached out to me and said they're looking for a sound of like for Optimus Prime. And at first, I always do what I always do. And I'm like that Peter Cullen wants to do it. I don't want anything to do with it. So don't even bother. And they said no, he's already said he won't do it for scale. So you if you want it, you can try it. And so they sent off my demo. And they booked me for the ADR, just just the normal satellite stuff, so that we can, even though I know it was just scratched, that was a huge deal for me, because I was like, I'm getting to work on Bumblebee movie.
And while I was there, actually, I think CSDs first sent on auditions to us for some transformers characters, if I remember right, but then there was some weirdness where I kept getting the same audition from different places. And they said it was switching studios. Some stuff I really didn't understand and never heard back. So I just assume nothing happened. And then the last session I was there, they said, while you're here, we'd like you to record for some other additional voices.
And I'm like, I bet that's what this was, which is so weird that I'm back trying it out for the third time. And but unfortunately for me, I was sitting next to Steve Blum, who has been working on transformers for quite a while. We need to know which characters you voiced already, which ones you booked, and I haven't booked, but I already know that somebody else is going to be doing that voice. So he was like, going, done it done it done it. Like most of them. So I get in there with two or three guys that I'm not very good at, and I record them.
Before I left. I was like, “Would you mind if I recorded for some of these other guys because I've been doing transformers soundalikes since I was a kid for 35 years. I've gotten pretty good at them—”
Alicyn
Thank you for asking for the opportunity.
Jon Bailey
Yeah, he was like, Yeah, sure, go ahead. And he's after two or three. He was like, John, you're blowing my mind. It's like having the cartoon right here live from sound like you're the thing. And in the original we we somehow managed to miraculously get the very first screening by accident!
We didn't know what we were seeing. But by accident, we got a screening for the very first screening in the US of Bumblebee before it was finished. Wait for the premiere screening.
Alicyn
Screener.
Jon Bailey
Yes, screener, and we went to the theater we not knowing what movie it was, it was just one of those bring kids at this age. So I had my my youngest child. Tyler. Yeah, so Tyler's like the biggest transformers fan of the group. And it said, if you like movies, like Avengers or Batman, they go this is the kind of movie that this was gonna be the action movie, whatever. And then the guy comes out and he looks like Tim Gunn. He's on a white suit. Like from top to bottom. He's like, congratulations, you're the very first audience in the US to see the bumblebee movie and my kids are like oh, and I had no idea at the time what I was gonna finish on I had nothing no no clue of anything. This was just a screener. I got no I got a paycheck out of it. Yay. And then they play it in the opening scene wasn't quite finished. But a lot of the voices that were in the scratch were me, including Optimus Prime!
Alicyn
Hey guys, this is Alicyn Packard. Sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to let you know that if you like the show, please, please, please remember to subscribe to this podcast and leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps us to get heard by more people. Thanks so much!
Jon Bailey
What does this mean? That probably means nothing. This is just temporary stuff. But then when the final about had the agent before animation. She let me know I think it was right at Halloween or close to Halloween that I was going to get not one but two of the roles in the final version of the film. And then when I found out which ones they were, they my actual two favorite characters out of all of the characters in Transformers, my two favorite ones. I've voiced my top three favorites already.
And I did all and I also crossed up a huge bucket list because as a kid, I'd always wanted to be a Transformer voice with Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime in the same official real Transformers project of some kind.
And this likes just checked off every list. My name is sandwiched right between David Sobeloff and Greg Griffin and Steve Blum and Peter Cohen I was like, “Yeah I know those people!”
Alicyn
Hey guys, it’s me… aww!
Jon Bailey
I didn’t want to be like that kid from The Simpsons, like, “I like to touch my primary!” like, creepy weird myself. I should try I was trying I should get an Oscar for how cool I actually played I was like, “Oh, hey, what's up?” Like I tried so hard. I bet my face must have probably been redder than this because I was trying so hard not to geek out the same time I was trying to act like I'm supposed to be there and just all nonchalantly whatever
Alicyn
Your skin looks pretty on fleek right now.
Jon Bailey
Try to pick all the flakes off if there's any left maybe I can.
Alicyn
Nope, still covered in fleek.
Jon Bailey
We should do what a big takeaway TD and Mark Ruffalo did when they did a live stream like he did the bottom half of the mouth and he hit the top half.
Jon Bailey
In a world where—
Alicyn
Oh my god this is so—
Jon Bailey
Miss Alicyn Packard. Watch my live streams!
Alicyn
That is gonna be about sorry. I just thought I heard a mom like out the window.
Jon Bailey
Yeah, my wife was actually telling in the comments we took the whole family and she was sick as a poor thing was but when the movie came out we took the whole family to see Bumblebee and it was just like it was just like a such a huge mo— and then of course one that we didn't know at the time whether it was gonna be on screen credit or not or just additional voices and there's my name and right there and with all the other voice and then my man like nobody hasn't
Alicyn
I think my kid— Oh my kid and my husband I think are going swimming I keep hearing his voice anyway in your head a lot so I thought it was that but no.
Jon Bailey
I plan on making a, some content a series of content based videos based on the like the ghost hunter shows but instead of ghost is just children because if you really think about it everything can be explained by children.
Doors being left open lights flipping little kids footprints after bedtime just—
Alicyn
Strange noises.
Jon Bailey
Yes. Yeah. Little girls whispering… Yeah, they're just up past bedtime something in the closet left the fridge open and I want to go in prisons like you can tell they've been here because the table is still dirty even though I told them to wipe it down hours earlier.
Alicyn
Where did that bandaid come from?!
Jon Bailey
Right? And I want to get my kids involved to have them like run by the door. Did you see that? I thought I saw a a kid, guys!
Alicyn
Yeah, I can hear them out there. So yeah, any other dream roles or areas of voice acting that you want to pursue? Like I still would like to be vision board.
Jon Bailey
I still like to be a regular on like a Network series. That's I'm still at the additional voices stage and just barely scratching the surface and animation. done plenty of video game stuff but not like a main video game character which would be really nice to be. Came close a few times. And yeah, that's pretty much the main type stuff that I'd liked and I just like to continue doing what I'm already doing now. I just like more of it. But yeah, ghost kid adventures. Yeah, you're right.
Alicyn
Ghost kid adventures. Tell our listeners about some of your… I'm going to [sneezes].
Jon Bailey
Corona! The computer virus.
Alicyn
Now you—
Jon Bailey
Yeah, what was the question that it was about generals dream roles. Okay, for some reason I thought we were on where they can find me and stuff.
Alicyn
Think around?
Jon Bailey
Maybe I mean, I I'm worked on some stuff. I can't go into any details. But I've worked on a really a really fingers crossed look good looking pilot that I would love to work on really busy. I'll be working with one of my favorite people that I was already a fan of making really. He can't see me say who it is. But he's created a couple of my favorite shows and worked on some of my favorite movies.
And he calls me his new super weapon when it comes to voiceover stuff. And that's like the that's a big compliment coming from most people. But it's a huge compliment coming from somebody that you like look up to and you're a fan.
Oh, I forgot to mention that at the end of the Transformers session. I didn't realize until after that last session that the guy I was in the booth was actually Travis Knight, the director of the movie. I had no idea that guy that I was like, Hey, can I do extra voices for? I had no idea that was him. And so yeah, that was… after that it was like any director “Hey, can you work on something?” Yes. I worked with Travis Knight and I didn't blow it so— it's kind of like Harry Potter but you see that you've already done the Patronus. You can do it because you already saw yourself do it. But in the past.
Alicyn
Somebody was asking for a forklift impression?
Jon Bailey
A forklift impression there's not much to fork to impress. It's a lot. It's a lot of trying not to drop something from two or three stories up to pick up the mess of big brands. The pallet breaks or –
Alicyn
What’s your favorite color?I don't want to forget that.
Jon Bailey
Purple is best color. They didn't have purple though. Um, so Joseph Debbie's booth, because it's so purple-y I don't know if you've been in the quarantine but it's so beautiful in there and yours. All the time. Part of yours is purple. Right?
Alicyn
Yeah, especially my raspberry but my couch is purple.
Jon Bailey
Gorgeous.
Alicyn
My Uri and Tara book.
Jon Bailey
And it looks so good with the white fluffy bench.
Alicyn
This is me back when I was with child, underwater.
Jon Bailey
Oh, that looks like an album cover.
Alicyn
Yeah.
Jon Bailey
There you go. People buy.
Alicyn
Yeah. So can you tell us about some of your video game roles?
Jon Bailey
Yeah, worked on a couple of Game of the Year winners I got to work for and XCOM called the zombie.
Alicyn
What did you play?
Jon Bailey
XCom was my first kind of big game break into gaming. That was another one where somebody had watched one of my YouTube videos, and was like, I just messaged me on YouTube and was like, Hey, I don't know if you have an agent or not. But I love what you did. And this Optimus Prime impression video and I have this game character, blah, blah, blah, get get in touch with me.
And I was thankful that I was already with an agent at the time. So I said the formation. And it was like because he didn't he's basically said, I get really sick of going through 500 auditions. And basically when I hear what I want, I just why go through all that when I just got to get him straight right away. So this is why I keep telling people that they should put content out there either, whether it's on YouTube, whether it's on Instagram, whether it's on Tik Tok, just put something out there that can show because you never know who's gonna watch it.
And you never know how you can get booked on something you really just never know. I tell the story because most recently this I had no idea but it was pretty awesome. Kathy, one of our mutual agent, she’s, “Hey, you booked World of Warcraft? Can you go to Irvine?”
I don't know where it is. But I'm like, Yes, I will do anything for voiceover jobs. So I drove three and a half hours on a quarter of a tank of gas, not knowing it's gonna be that bad. And the time of the session was from four to six on a Friday. And now I'd have to drive back to LA through that. And then I get there.
And then that was they were like, “Did they tell you how you booked the job?” And like, No, we were all curious because I didn't audition. They said you recorded something for us in 2011. And we kept it because we liked it and your voice came up for something seven years later. Seven years they had that audition so you really never know!
Alicyn
Who did your voice on that?
Jon Bailey
Excellent characters and World of Warcraft. Some of the creatures I don’t really know the remembers the species names, which was one of my first creature gigs. And they were like, holy crap you've been you're really good at creatures if you've been doing this long. I'm like this Mike the second time they're like really? Like he just went to a really short list of guys. He was really good at creatures. I'm like, okay, cool. We got been doing it for years. And we got done with the whole thing and 20 minutes flat and I drove back like just as fast as I got there after I got some gas of course.
Alicyn
And it only took four hours.
Jon Bailey
Yeah, four hours to get there. No, you're 20 minutes to do the job. And then drive back through traffic. wasn't as bad as I thought was gonna be. How was
Alicyn
How's your Tim Burton impression? Lots of people chiming in…
Jon Bailey
Tim Burton. The scene didn't like— I've never I honestly last time I heard Tim Burton's voice was on probably a DVD special feature a decade or two ago. I don't know what that sounds. I don't get auditions for Tim Burton very often. Sorry, guys.
Alicyn
Not a popular one.
Jon Bailey
That is definitely a first I've never been asked to do a Tim Burton impression before.
Alicyn
Okay, what's been your favorite experience recording scratch and I guess it can't really be better than that Transformers experience.
Jon Bailey
Detective Pikachu. Honestly, as much as I love Bumblebee Movie to take the picture was the most fun I've ever had.
Alicyn
Okay, so you started doing scratch and then you did ADR or how did that— tell us about that
Jon Bailey
The scratch ad or I consider those the basically the same thing but most of the ADR that I had done previously was not scratched for films. It was ADR for trailers or commercials specifically right or it was like Netflix series like animes done. So doing it for film though. that started with that's actually started with Krampus with Adam McArthur and a few other folks from CSD and so about 10 or 11 others in a loop group session for that.
And then we the three of us, me and Adam, and I'm spacing on his name. But you know, if you saw him at the agency, we the three of us that have everybody got called back and this one I wasn't even living in LA at the time. And I made a point to fly back just for that.
Alicyn
Oh wow.
Jon Bailey
And we got the audition. The audition was literally speaking and unknown language for one minute straight. That was the audition. That's what that sounds so three different languages for three minutes. And yeah, next day, I'm in fact that she said within a couple of hours, she's like, how fast can you get to Universal Studios? And I'm like, I can be there now. Do you need me to okay, you're you got a job tomorrow. And I'm like, okay, cool. So that kind of opened the door for that. And then the Optimus Prime thing led to working at Paramount and the Detective Pikachu was just through an audition, I just auditioned for it and got the job and they just hired me back over and over again. It was a lot of it's a ton of sessions.
Alicyn
Was it matching Pikachu?
Jon Bailey
Yeah, yeah.
Alicyn
Okay.
Jon Bailey
Yeah. The half of the whole film, which was awesome. I didn't get to see the screening for that one. But I was told that a lot of the a lot of Ryan's blinds in the screener were me, but I didn't actually see it. But I was also there's a couple of spots in there that are still me in the final film. And then there's there's a news anchor, right before the big battle with praise like the annual rhyme city Pokemon parade is that that's me too. Wow.
Alicyn
Really good memory for that kind of stuff. I can't remember when you're
Jon Bailey
Well, when your resume’s short like mine, as far as cool jobs go, it keeps the shortlist is about this big. Makes it easy to remember the cool ones. It's hard to remember all the small stuff.
Alicyn
Yeah, that's true. I am curious, because you are you do a lot of stuff raising funds and awareness for autism. Autism awareness. Is that organization, I believe?
Jon Bailey
Yeah. Body of America is the actual
Alicyn
Autism Society of America. Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit more about how that has been having a child that has autism?
Jon Bailey
But this job has been a serious blessing because of our situation with my son, because we would not have the insurance that we have, which is so much. We would be bankrupt if we didn't have the insurance to pay for just the medications alone. Everyone's but yet the facilities here and the fact that I'm in the Screen Actors Guild and have a good insurance, it's been a huge hotel, and being able to work from home.
Most people are pretty considerate, especially behind the scenes, if you're just upfront with folks and say, look, they understand that our kids are not in school right now that they're at home, and they understand that I have an autistic kid up front. And that usually doesn't cause any problems. I'm just like, when I really need five minutes, there's a situation we don't want it to get out of control. But yeah, it is back to the whole spinning plates. It's very Yeah, it can be nerve racking. It really can be. But it's, I'm glad that I'm able to be here most of the time, and that I don't have to travel far to do jobs very often. And I don't have to be gone for long periods of time either.
Alicyn
Do you guys get to all have lunch together or?
Jon Bailey
We, the kids usually eat their lunch separately meat for me, because I'm usually in the booth for most of the day. We have enough agents now and enough content to work on that. My day is pretty much, you know, booked up until 9:30pm 10 o'clock at night. You can my wife can she's in the chat, she can vouch for you. Yeah. He falls asleep. So I have a little window before I fall asleep. Okay, so I'll throw in a costume. And then I'll do 30 or 40 different voices auditioning for a certain character in a movie or TV show. And anything else that I can think of while I'm in that outfit, and then I'll go to bed and then spice up the video in between stuff later on when I just find a time because I can do all that from my phone.
Now my phone's gotten to the point where I can do everything from it. And so that makes it very convenient to be making stuff as I go. And in that tiny little, tiny window. But usually I can get hours of stuff out of just a few minutes. And when I say hour and I can get hours with the work to editing videos and putting things together and rearranging the the order. Thank you, Debbie you are just the sweetest, as opposed to
Alicyn
Hours and hours.
Jon Bailey
You're like yeah, cuz it's too easy just to get up there and be like record blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the end post. I put more effort into that I tried because I've recently started working with a deep fake app. And I know that deep fakes can be used for evil, but I do not use them for evil. The reason why I like the app is because it actually has a unremoveable watermark. So it's not real, right, right. It's a new way to combine what the kids are calling cosplay.
And I'm basically combining that with impressions with deep fake technology to create a different type of content. And a lot of people seem to really enjoy it and it gets a ton of use. And this this that and it's the standard basic impression videos saying things that fans request is like the new standard no on the internet, I usually only five streams, it's just a ton of do this do family guy doing so.
Alicyn
Right.
Jon Bailey
Because I can't do it doesn't mean I can just sit here and do it all day long. I do still have to take care of my instrument and still have to work in the morning. So yeah, it's a lot to balance when you have a kid that comes to the door every five seconds. Dad, can I take a picture of this toy? You know?
Alicyn
What about I just lost my train of thought? Yeah, with the deep fake. What was I gonna say?
Jon Bailey
We were talking about the autism with Zach.
Alicyn
Oh, right.
Jon Bailey
Yeah, it can be very difficult because you're in the middle of recording and then you get Knock, knock. And it's usually over something like I drew a picture or gonna have a snack or it's just because he's not in school with a set schedule. He's very, I need dad's attention every minutes, buddy, the elf. Okay, I'll call you back in five minutes. It's like that, buddy. It's not an emergency Daddy has to do his job. And I understand from their point of view, especially from his not understanding that this is actually great for my brand, and getting all these tons of views and likes and being able to network as well as I have some really well connected people on through Tik Tok and things as part of the job. So he just sees it as me just playing around banking videos, he doesn't even he thinks that he's just making doing dress up and playing cards, you know, just putting on costumes. So it's hard. It's hard to make him understand that Daddy has to do this job. And if Daddy doesn't make money, then he doesn't get things, you know?
Alicyn
Yeah, it's tough to find that balance and to really know where what is paying off in the long run. I think I actually took a 14 month break from all social media. And did you and it was a dream actually, it was like so nice to have imagined
Jon Bailey
it's, I've been I've been dreaming of social media retirement for years. What is the point where I really am too old to do social media anymore? And then I'm like, sorry, no, I'm just a creepy old man. The end because I'm saying I'm hopefully I'm gonna get to that point when they come to over this. Oh, yeah. Give me a real Riggs. Bowman from the lethal weapon be like
Alicyn
Me, like, like, people won't even use it anymore. They'll be like a new media or always be Yeah,
Jon Bailey
they'll always be something new coming.
Alicyn
I'll be like, why YouTube?
Jon Bailey
Yeah, I told my wife all along. Like we always had said what Sacher gets all the benefits that he needs. There's no reason to kill myself for it anymore. And I can just focus on just doing voiceover. And I wouldn't be opposed to somebody running it for me. Or like, a friend of mine, that I met on Tik Tok to everybody here with no, because he's a TV show, but I'm not sure if he wants me to disclose anything. He basically said that we're stuck doing this for life. And I'm like, Why do you say that? He's do Chris Pratt has to do it. And so yeah, but he's a movie stars now. But he wouldn't. He doesn't have to do it. He's a freaking movie star. But he's actually said, my boss or whoever is making me do this. I believe him making him do social media. I believe him. I believe that those there are people who they get contractually obligated. Oh, no, you have to do this. But like I said, most people have somebody running it for them. I just don't have that kind of money. But maybe one day somebody runs it for me. Fine. But
Alicyn
yeah, yeah. On the creative, or even delegate, hey, edit this.
Jon Bailey
I come up with it. I love coming up with ideas. I love working on collaborating with people and making content. Yeah, I have that creative outlet. And it keeps me at peace and gives me something to do and it entertains people puts a little bit of joy in their lives. But doing it all by myself forever. It's just No,
Alicyn
I don't know how you find to be just putting out so much material.
Jon Bailey
It's kind of like Costco I make things in bulk. Up a little bit at a time.
Alicyn
You're like changing your shirt to make it look like it's a different day. No shame. I'm just asking. Yeah, I
Jon Bailey
don't know if you've noticed on Instagram, like I said, I pay attention to patterns. The best. You notice my this is a good example of the pattern. Well, you got your black, blue, black, blue. With Instagram, I try to either do all the same colors in a row or all the same actor face something but something similar the ties those three, because of your overall profile view is in threes. 333. So if you have those pictures side by side, looking at the profile overall, it's just it's already so aesthetically pleasing.
People are like, Oh, look at that, because it's got red, and then purple and then green. And and it's also creative, funny, whatever content that show highlights, in my case voiceover skills. But in everybody can everybody's case everybody's different.
Some people do art some people are they make stuff. Some people just do science and my buddy Nick just he's got millions of followers because he does science experiments. But I try to pay attention to those little things that help things do better. And then but I just can't devote a lot of time to it. I could probably be a social media star, if I actually was doing this full time rather than trying to but the voiceover career for me is more important because that's what took care of that's what takes care of the family.
Alicyn
I thought you were a social media star.
Jon Bailey
Oh, you're cute. But not really I'm a social I'm on the level that's considered a social media influencer or a content creator. But I think there's I think there's another level when you get to that you're a social media celebrity. It's when people recognize you everywhere you go. You can just tweet the word fart and 50 million people like it. You know what I mean? I'm never gonna be to that point. I'm happy. Johnson says Happy Birthday on Twitter. I'm just like,
Alicyn
I will always like your hearts.
Jon Bailey
I appreciate it. I don't have rich mahogany.
Alicyn
So I want to be conscientious of your time because I know you are very—
Jon Bailey
clear. She's not yelling yet. So I do know that there's a one-hour limit
Alicyn
on a Deb Sedona. Deb says yours are two. That's tabby. Derryberry.
Jon Bailey
That's no, that's our Debbie Cope.
Alicyn
Oh, Debbie. Come Well, Debbie.
Jon Bailey
Isn't she beautiful in her picture?
Alicyn
You know what I can hardly see right now. But that makes sense. I thought that at first, and then I didn't recognize the picture at all. So I thought it was somebody else.
Jon Bailey
She thought, “You look too good, Debbie.”
Alicyn
I just can't see because it's so tiny.
Jon Bailey
Because we were like, Don't you recognize me? I'm like, I'm sorry. But your pictures not this big anymore. I have exact opposite problem. Like I can see it pretty good from this far away. But then people are in full life and I don't recognize them at all because I'm used to seeing them this big.
Alicyn
Or you have a body. People want to hear your Ryan Reynolds.
Jon Bailey
People always want to hear the Ryan Reynolds. I don't know what it is. I help you what were your brown pants. Because this is really special. Brought to you by smooth delicious Aviation Gin and Mint Mobile.
Alicyn
And now any projects on the horizon Now obviously, I know you NDA city.
Jon Bailey
I know! NDA— I have a couple of things that I've still not been cleared to say anything about. I know. A lot of people are talking about something that just came out. But I'm not been clear to say anything. So I'm sorry, guys. I would love to say something that I refrain from even reposting it. Just to be careful and conscientious of my NDA. But yeah, you can hear me out and you can hear me an Elder Scrolls the latest chapters, I think the last three or four Elder Scrolls Online.
And a new game that just came out called Marble Knights with Christina Vee, directing. Anna Brisbin’s in that and Erica Ishi, you guys most of you Instagram. YouTubers will know both of them. And Anna’s with CST now as well. She goes by Brizzy Voices on YouTube. She's does a lot of female impression stuff. Okay, so this was this was an arcade Apple arcade game. So it's pretty cool.
It's called Marble Knights. So everybody is everybody's little bodies are like half marble. And it's got tons of bald puns in it, guys. There's so many marble puns. It's not even funny. Yeah. So he's like the he's like the narrator I've always wanted to be the guy that is like, wrong. As the sketchy is my daughter, she's in the chat as well.
Alicyn
That's great. John, can you do a trailer for NDA the movie?
Jon Bailey
Coming soon. A movie you'll never see, something you'll never hear about. Non-Disclosure Agreement, the movie. Rated NDA.
Jon Bailey
That's my son Tyler fan art is my son.
Alicyn
This is a family. My daughter? Yeah, it's
Jon Bailey
a Bailey family reunion.
Alicyn
Gianna, could you any commercial, you talk really fast, but yours totally legible. And it's like a totally iconic commercial from like, when we were kids to remember you want to talk about that?
Jon Bailey
Oh, my gosh, it's just a magazine. Not the real thing. So yeah, I'm the nucleus of the micromachined. huge surprise to me. I honestly did that. audition is a joke, because I thought I didn't have a shot. I was I'm, I am terrible at reading the legal speak at the end of commercials. I'm so bad at it. And I try so hard to be good at it. And I was like this is there's no way so I just did it. And they were like that was great. And then it was it was it was twice as hard as a normal commercial.
Because if you've seen the new one, they actually deep faked my mouth over the kids mouths. So it looks like they're saying as fast as I'm saying it with my voice. And so I had to go in camera during quarantine to go do an on-camera thing where I was recording the lines voiceover wise. And then they had they were filming my face at the time. And that was some work.
Because that's not my that's not the gig people know me for reading ridiculously fast. But thankfully we just say line by line and it wasn't just it wasn't just a line by line. They like to elaborate like a lot. Yeah, and all the words are like all the other P and just every single one of them is a tongue twister and I'm just like this is worst case scenario for voice actor. The whole gig is like legal speak. But yeah,
Alicyn
It's really not only that you have to like actually think about how your mouth is moving and yeah, and
Jon Bailey
Yeah, you gotta stay really still because the cameras on your mouth.
Alicyn
Can you like get in really close and maybe talk like this?
Jon Bailey
Yeah, it was a lot of work. Yeah, it was the voice of it was the John Machito Jr's voice originally, but yeah, yes, I did do a season of Graveyard Cars. Thank you, Destiny, I was, I've done I've been a Napa reality TV series Narrator At one point, it was cool because I love Mike machines. I love the Micro Machines commercials and I had so many of them when I was a kid too. So I was just happy to see it back. But to actually be the voice of it was really awesome.
Alicyn
That's so cool. See, you're the voice of Graveyard Car. Isn't that funny? I know. Women who kill.
Jon Bailey
Cars is about where they take old crappy cars completely restore the entire thing, which is not something I'd ever done before I was that that was funny because our mutual acquaintance Mr. Binney, I was like you have a good when I first audition for the agency. He's like I think you have a good voice for like documentaries and like documentary narrate reality TV narration, and I never in years never ever booked it to the point of them just not even fooling with sending me the script. Even though I have supposedly have that voice that's average guy next door. That's the one I never ever book this one. It was one of those things where again, the guy was like I'm a huge fan and we'd love to have you as the voice of our show. And I'm like, okay, cool. I'll take what I can get but I prefer to audition for it and get it and just be like I will
Alicyn
give you the the John I should have just kept my youtube channel pouring out like
Jon Bailey
I was I was ever my father in law was actually my wife just mentioned my front and I was actually a big fan that show so he's heard me on the show he's like
Alicyn
so he didn't know until like nobody can bring cars back from the dead like John Bailey
Jon Bailey
apparently so who knows?
Alicyn
Guys we're gonna wrap it up because I've know John has a lot of things to do is get a kiss each of the kids Good night tonight.
Jon Bailey
Although I guess they're teenagers I don't know if we're doing six foot social distancing kissing goodnight now but just blow kisses and in fact the Air Voice actors are we have to work twice as hard not to get sick. Because we really need to be well because we cannot afford to be some of these people get out or out of work for months. So it's this is a worst case scenario for some of us because we cannot afford to get killed on a normal day alone. There's a killer virus out there. Yeah, Eric cases, but you can't blow them directly at somebody. blow them away. And that's the
Alicyn
thing about the internet and screens contain
Jon Bailey
more friends now and I did before we did. We need to catch up and get coffee and
Alicyn
then we never did. Okay, so people are someone that asked if you could do the Beetlejuice Juilliard speech.
Jon Bailey
I don't remember that. I saw that that comment magnet all day. They just say the word say the word three times.
Jon Bailey
But I don't know Juilliard speech. They refer to it. I haven't seen that yesterday. I'm not gonna remember.
Alicyn
You do have quite the memory though. Calling a lot of stuff.
Jon Bailey
I surprise myself because I do not have a very good memory. So when I recall things I'm like, inside like
Alicyn
Does anybody else have any more questions before we let John go for any of John's fans that want to check out the show next week? Let me check my schedule here. Oh, next week we have voice actress Kimberly Brooks is going to be our special guest. So that's going to be a really fun one. Kimberly has been in like, a million things. I first worked with her on man with a plan. DC Superhero Girls and she's just an a bunch of stuff. So stay tuned for that. And you can
Jon Bailey
get her first Comic Con. Oh, what was that? I was there for her first Comic Con paint.
Alicyn
I was so proud. Wow. Well, you read that?
Jon Bailey
This past year, like last year?
Alicyn
First. That's amazing. Yeah, I can imagine that's pretty cool. Any more questions? Let's see. There's one more question. See timber and characters. Okay. I think sugar Mandy Cosplay has the question to wrap it up. Can you tell us the secret to being epic?
Jon Bailey
The secret to being epic is confidence more than anything else? It's just believing that you can do it or faking that you can do it whether anybody else because if you can make other people believe it then be another to be burned up.
Alicyn
And is it mostly fake until you make it or is it
Jon Bailey
it's like it was it came to me that was such a great illustration the Harry Potter thing because it kind of that's exactly what happened. Like I'd worked with one of the biggest directors and like the one of the film same thing with the ticket Pikachu and they didn't know until after the fact that I've been working with the main people who are making this movie. And then working with somebody like Michael Bay was not even a problem like as close as you and I are but in real life. And everybody was like, like a baby like he's really scary. Like seemed went great.
And after that point, it's just like any other thing I did. I did not mention that during this thing was that I started doing stand up at flappers when I first moved here, and honestly, it is like going from fastball to slow, soft balls. Like the hardest you can think of to the easiest thing you can think of. And at that point, nothing seemed to nothing scared me anymore when it came to doing auditions for stuff because like when you get up and live in front of a bunch of people, and you're able to entertain them and make them you make somebody laugh with words out of your mouth. That's not easy to do. And being able to do that was like what am I so worried about with the nobody's in the booth with me?
Alicyn
You can just be free. Yeah, thanks guys so much. I actually this is the first time this has ever happened. But apparently I have a minute, two seconds left until I guess we get they're gonna shut it down.
Thank you so much for tuning in, guys. And I hope that you'll stick around and catch him some future episodes. Debi Derryberry is coming in next month. And we're gonna get Phil Farmer in here as well. We hope you tune in. And so good to see you. Thank you so much for being my guest tonight.
Jon Bailey
Bye, Alicyn!
Alicyn
Air hug.
Jon Bailey
Aw! Love, love.
Alicyn
Yes. Okay. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks, everybody. See you next week. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to Alicyn's Wonderland, where we explore the wild and wonderful world of animation and video games. Please remember to subscribe and leave us a review. For more episodes of Alicyn's Wonderland. Please visit us at www.AlicynPackard.com. See you next week.